Between 30 July and 3 September, at least 2,740 Palestinians were killed and more than 15,400 injured in the occupied Gaza Strip. During the month of August, Israel launched a new offensive in Gaza City and famine was declared for the first time in the territory by a global food security monitor.

As of 3 September, nearly 63,750 Palestinians in Gaza were confirmed to have been killed since 7 October 2023, according to the health ministry in the territory. Nearly 161,250 injuries have been recorded by the ministry.

The fatality count includes 280 people who were retroactively added on 30 August “after their identification details were approved by a ministerial committee,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing the health ministry.

Nearly 2,350 people have been killed and more than 17,000 injured while trying to access aid since 27 May, when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-American militarized aid scheme, began operating in Gaza. Nearly 1,150 were killed near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites and the remainder were killed along convoy supply routes.

More than 450 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since ground operations began in October 2023, according to the military.

Most people in Gaza were receiving less than the emergency standard of 15 liters of water per day due to “limited fuel supplies needed to operate water and sanitation facilities, massive destruction or inaccessibility to water and sanitation infrastructure and the inability to carry out needed repairs,” OCHA said during August.

“A further deterioration in the situation in the northern Gaza Strip, especially in Gaza City, could endanger the operation of the few remaining water and sanitation facilities serving nearly one million people,” OCHA said as Israel intensified its attacks on and operations in Gaza City.

As of 3 September, the health ministry in Gaza has recorded 367 malnutrition-related deaths, among them 131 children, since October 2023. Four of those deaths were documented in 2023, 49 in 2024 and 260 between January and 27 August 2025, according to OCHA.

Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank during August.

On 4 August, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man “during an exchange of fire with Palestinians near an agricultural structure in Qabatiya,” near Jenin, according to OCHA.

“Israeli forces demolished the structure with a bulldozer and detained the injured man, while the body of the Palestinian fatality was later retrieved by Palestinian medics,” OCHA added.

A Palestinian man with Israeli citizenship was shot and killed during a raid on Jericho and its two refugee camps on 9 August.

“Video footage shows a man walking in the street and being shot, after which Israeli forces pass by,” OCHA said.

“Israeli forces reportedly denied medical teams access for 20 minutes, after which the man was transported by Palestinian medics to a hospital in Jericho and then he was transferred to a hospital in Israel, where he was pronounced dead.”

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa named the slain man as Abdullah Atiyat, 25.

On 13 August, an Israel settler shot and killed a Palestinian during an attack on Duma village near Nablus. “Since the beginning of this year, Israeli settlers have killed five Palestinians in attacks perpetrated by settlers, compared to three in 2024,” according to OCHA.

On 16 August, Israeli forces shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian in al-Mughayyir village near Ramallah during a military raid after residents confronted dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian property belonging to al-Mughayyir and another nearby community.

On 21 August, Israeli forces shot a Palestinian man near a checkpoint in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank.

The Israeli military claimed that the man had pulled out a gun and pointed it at soldiers at the checkpoint before he was shot. He died as a result of his injuries at an Israeli hospital on 25 August.

Around 175 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far this year.

A Palestinian man from Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank, who was held without charge or trial since early May died in Israeli detention on 3 August, according to Palestinian prisoners’ organizations.

At least 76 Palestinians died in Israeli custody between 7 October 2023 and 4 August this year, including 46 people from Gaza, 28 from the West Bank and two Palestinian citizens of Israel.

As of September 2025, more than 11,000 Palestinians are being held by Israel. Among them are 1,540 prisoners serving sentences, around 3,350 remand detainees, 3,577 held without charge or trial under administrative detention orders and 2,662 people held as “unlawful combatants,” according to Israel Prison Service data.

Not included in these figures are Palestinians from Gaza detained by Israel since October 2023.

More than 2,780 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since January 2025, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Nearly 500 were injured by settlers, “a 39 percent increase in overall injuries and a two-fold increase in injuries by settlers compared with the same period in 2024,” OCHA said.

More than 1,150 structures have been demolished across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, so far this year on the pretext that they lacked Israeli-issued building permits, “which are almost impossible to obtain,” according to OCHA.

Nearly 1,300 Palestinians were displaced by the demolitions.

Israeli forces raided 20 schools in the West Bank city of Hebron on 28 August and “confiscated teaching books, pictures and other education materials,” according to OCHA.

Israeli forces also closed a gate in Hebron that “affects the access of about 100 people to their homes and the surrounding areas” and will hinder the access of hundreds of students and staff to a nearby school.

OCHA also reported that the Palestinian education ministry “postponed the start of the 2025-2026 school year in the West Bank to 8 September, citing financial constraints.”

More than 84 schools serving 12,855 students in the West Bank face pending demolition orders, including 10 in East Jerusalem, according to OCHA.

Following a shooting attack that injured a settler on 21 August, Israeli forces carried out a four-day operation in al-Mughayyir village near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli forces blocked entrances to the community, searched homes and uprooted thousands of olive trees, according to OCHA.

A woman in labor was forced to walk to reach an ambulance while Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters toward her, according to OCHA.

On 1 August, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said that it had “6,000 trucks loaded with aid stuck outside Gaza waiting for the green light to enter.”

The agency criticized aid airdrops, which it said were “at least 100 times more costly” than transferring aid by truck.

UNRWA added that “if there is political will to allow airdrops … there should be similar political will to open the road crossings.”

In a statement issued on 4 August, the Canadian government stated that it had dropped 21,600 pounds of aid into Gaza while need had “reached an unprecedented level” amid “ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli government.”

“This obstruction of aid is a violation of international humanitarian law and must end immediately,” the Canadian government added.

The German government also announced that it had airdropped 14 tons of food aid and medical supplies on 4 August. Unlike the statement by its Canadian counterpart, the German statement did not mention Israeli restrictions or international law.

Later in the month, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that airdrops were only “an illusion of aid.” Between 26 July and 11 August, 1,218 aid packages were dropped into Gaza.

“Gaza’s actual need is around 600 trucks of aid every single day to stop famine and begin recovery,” the Geneva-based rights group said. “Over 17 days, that equals 10,200 trucks.”

The 1,218 aid packages dropped over the 17 consecutive days in late July and early August are the equivalent of around 40 truckloads – “a mere 0.4 percent of what is needed,” Euro-Med Monitor added.

“At this rate, it would take 250 days of airdrops to deliver the same amount of aid Gaza requires in a single day,” according to the group.

On 2 August, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights stated that Israeli forces were intensifying the naval blockade on Gaza, “denying fishermen access to the sea and preventing them from carrying out their work.”

The Gaza-based group said that this was “part of a broader pattern of systematic Israeli measures aimed to tighten control over Palestinians, starve the population and eliminate one of their last remaining sources of food.”

More than 20 fishers were arrested and taken to unknown locations after Israel imposed even tighter restrictions on access to Gaza’s coastal waters on 12 July, according to PCHR.

“Other fishermen have been directly targeted when [Israeli military] gunboats attacked and opened fire on their boats … resulting in numerous injuries and significant damage to their fishing equipment,” the rights group added.

Gaza’s fishing sector has been reduced by 85 percent since October 2023, with fishers “killed, chased and arrested” and most boats and equipment destroyed.

More than 5,000 fishers have been left without a means to provide for their families as a result, while the general population has been deprived of a key food source.

Three Palestinian fishers were killed in separate incidents when their boats were hit while in Gaza’s coastal waters on 16 August, 18 August and 29 August.

On 3 August, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies condemned an attack on the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, earlier in the day.

Omar Isleem, a Red Crescent staff member, was killed and two other employees and another civilian were injured.

The humanitarian organization’s facility “was reportedly struck multiple times, with the second and ground floors hit while PRCS teams were evacuating the premises and working to contain a fire,” the federation stated.

“A total of 51 PRCS staff and volunteers have lost their lives during this conflict,” the federation added.

“Of these, 31 – including 29 in Gaza and two in the West Bank – were killed while on duty, wearing the Red Crescent emblem that should have guaranteed their protection under international humanitarian law.”

At least three additional Red Crescent personnel were killed in Gaza during August.

Abdel Majeed Adnan Salamah, a 28-year-old who had volunteered with the Red Crescent for several years, was killed while attempting to obtain food aid west of Rafah, the humanitarian organization said on 5 August.

Ashraf Suleiman Eid Yousef, a 44-year-old administrator for the Red Crescent in Gaza City, was killed when Israeli forces “targeted a group of civilians while they were waiting to receive aid” in central Gaza, the humanitarian organization announced on 7 August.

Saleem Sobhi al-Sawarka, a 38-year-old volunteer, was killed when Israeli forces targeted a group of civilians while he was visiting relatives in northern Gaza, the Red Crescent said on 16 August.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on 3 August that “Israel has destroyed nearly all animal wealth in the Gaza Strip … through bombing and systematic starvation.”

This includes “​​working animals that served as the last means of transport amid fuel shortages and limited public mobility,” the Geneva-based group added.

“The destruction of animal wealth coincides with the bulldozing of thousands of acres of farmland,” Euro-Med Monitor said.

These amount to “a deliberate policy to starve the population, destroy food sources and inflict severe physical and psychological suffering,” the group added.

The destruction of some 93 percent of Gaza’s approximately 6,500 poultry farms through direct bombing or denial of food and water is “one of the largest systematic assaults on white meat production.”

The number of cows, sheep and goats were similarly reduced, and no more than 6 percent of Gaza’s donkeys, horses and mules used as working animals remain, “reflecting a near-total collapse of this vital sector,” according to Euro-Med.

Meanwhile, Israel’s public broadcaster reported that the Israeli military gathered hundreds of donkeys in Gaza, which were eventually sent to animal sanctuaries in France and Belgium.

Euro-Med stated that the propaganda effort is “a blatant act of looting and part of a systematic policy to dismantle the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip.”

Later in the month, after an Israeli drone strike killed five members of the al-Astal family while they were working farmland west of Khan Younis, Euro-Med pointed to a “systematic policy aimed at destroying any attempt to secure the minimum food supply through local production.”

“Israeli forces have killed or injured hundreds of Palestinian farmers, while systematically destroying or occupying Gaza’s farmland,” Euro-Med said.

“Today, Israel controls over 93 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land … effectively dismantling Gaza’s food production capacity and stripping civilians of their most basic means of survival.”

Three men were killed in a strike on farmers in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on 29 August.

Israel allowed animal feed for livestock for the first time in more than five months on 25 August.

The UN human rights chief Volker Türk stated on 4 August that the images of starving people in Gaza “are heart-rending and intolerable.”

Israeli restrictions denying civilians access to food “may amount to a war crime, as well as potentially a crime against humanity,” Türk added.

Türk also said that “the videos of emaciated Israeli hostages published by Palestinian armed groups are shocking, and I am appalled by their humiliating treatment.” The human rights chief was referring to footage released by Hamas on 1 August showing an emaciated Evyatar David, an Israeli held captive in Gaza since 7 October 2023. The video shows David digging a hole that he describes as his own grave.

The previous day, Islamic Jihad published a video of Rom Braslavski, an Israeli captive who also appeared to be emaciated in the footage and said he felt weak due to a lack of food and water.

Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, also condemned the videos and photos of emaciated captives being held in Gaza. She stated on 8 August that “cruelty is being used as psychological warfare.”

She called on Hamas and Islamic Jihad to unconditionally and immediately release “all remaining hostages” held by the groups and for “states with influence to break the stalemate over ceasefire negotiations.”

After the release of the videos, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, requested that the Red Cross provide food and medical care to captives in Gaza.

Hamas said that it would coordinate with the Red Cross if Israel permanently opened humanitarian corridors and halted airstrikes while aid was being distributed.

The Red Cross said that “hostage-taking is strictly prohibited according to international humanitarian law” and added that “persons deprived of liberty must be afforded humane treatment and acceptable conditions.”

Twenty of the 50 captives remaining in Gaza are believed to still be alive, though US President Donald Trump has said that some of them may have died. Most of the approximately 250 people captured on 7 October 2023 and held in Gaza were released through agreements negotiated with Hamas.

Israel announced on 29 August that it had recovered the bodies of two people who were killed on 7 October 2023 during an operation in an unspecified area of Gaza.

On 5 August, 25 UN human rights experts called for the immediate dismantling of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and said that “Palestinians are paying the ultimate price of the international community’s legal, political and moral failure.”

The experts said that humanitarian relief in Gaza was being exploited “for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.”

“The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices,” they added.

“Without clear accountability, the very idea of humanitarian relief may ultimately become a casualty of modern hybrid warfare,” the experts said.

They urged UN member states to “impose a full arms embargo on Israel,” suspend trade agreements and “hold corporate entities accountable.”

On 7 August, in a statement published by the UN Human Rights Council, UN experts demanded that Israel “immediately restore unimpeded access to Gaza by impartial humanitarian organizations.”

“All states must act decisively to prevent Israel’s destruction of the conditions of life in Gaza and stop its endless war on humanity,” the experts said.

“States must do everything in their power to restore the UN humanitarian system in Gaza,” they added.

They noted that after Israel’s unsubstantiated “terror” allegations against UNRWA, “all donors but the United States resumed funding,” but the agency is at an “unprecedented breaking point” due to the freeze on funding from its largest donor country.

Israel has meanwhile “expanded its smear campaign alleging terrorism to include OCHA,” the UN humanitarian affairs body.

More than 500,000 people, representing a quarter of Gaza’s population, are facing famine and the remainder “are suffering from emergency levels of hunger,” the UN experts said.

“All 320,000 children under 5 are at risk of acute malnutrition, with serious lifelong physical and mental health consequences,” they added.

Later in the month, the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan said that it was “deeply troubled” by reports of meetings between representatives of UN agencies and major nongovernmental organizations, including OCHA, the World Food Program, the UN children’s fund UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, “regarding potential engagement with the GHF.”

“Such engagement risks legitimizing an unlawful scheme deliberately designed to manipulate humanitarian aid and to entrench starvation as a tool of genocide,” Al Mezan added.

It also raises “serious concerns of complicity in Israel’s grave breaches of international law.”

In early August, Axios reported, as did The New Humanitarian, that senior UN and Red Cross officials secretly met with the chair of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in a convening organized by US diplomats at the UN headquarters in New York City.

On 27 August, COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of the Israeli military, published photos of Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Program, smiling and shaking hands with Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT who called Palestinians in Gaza “human beasts” when announcing a total blockade on Gaza in October 2023. COGAT also published a photo showing McCain with Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir.

Shortly after McCain’s meeting with senior Israeli officials, including Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli military announced that it would no longer observe a “tactical pause” in activity in the Gaza City area. The pauses were announced by Israel in late July to ostensibly facilitate aid distribution amid international pressure over the unfolding famine.

Also on 5 August, Al Mezan and the MENA Rights Group stated that they had documented the cases of five Palestinians, including a child, “who disappeared as they were attempting to collect humanitarian aid” at various Gaza Humanitarian Foundation points.

Abdulraouf al-Hems, 16, and Ahmed al-Akhras, 20, disappeared at a GHF point in northern Rafah on 21 June. Israeli authorities denied holding them after receiving an inquiry by Al Mezan’s lawyers.

The military did acknowledge the detention of Ramy Omar, 46, who disappeared at a different site in Rafah on 17 June, as well as that of Majd al-Jazzar, 21, and Ashraf Abdeen, 31, who disappeared at a third Rafah distribution point on two separate dates in July.

“The Israeli army refused to disclose their place of detention and denied them their right to access legal counsel, placing them in incommunicado detention and at heightened risk of torture and ill-treatment,” the rights groups stated.

“These five documented cases are only the tip of the iceberg,” the groups added.

On 6 August, the UN warned that most international nongovernmental organizations providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza could be barred by Israel if they do not register under a new system that obliges them to share sensitive personal information about their Palestinian staff.

The new restrictive conditions also include “potential consequences for public criticism of policies and practices of the government of Israel,” the UN humanitarian country team for the West Bank and Gaza said.

Organizations not registered under the new regime are already prohibited from providing aid to Gaza, including “medicine, food and hygiene items.”

“This most profoundly affects women, children, older people and persons with disabilities, further aggravating the risk of being subjected to abuse and exploitation,” the UN country team said.

Without the support of international nongovernmental organizations, the new restrictions will leave Palestinian groups unable to carry out their work, “cutting off even more communities from food, medical care, shelter and critical protection services.”

The World Health Organization’s office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said that “complex entry requirements and the arbitrary denial of international emergency medical teams” were leading to the reduction of health services “and leading to more deaths in Gaza.”

Since 18 March – the date that Israel broke a nearly two-month ceasefire – the UN health organization said, “denial rates have risen by nearly 50 percent.” More than 100 international emergency health professionals, including surgeons and other specialized medical staff, were barred from entry, WHO added.

The foreign ministers of 24 countries – including Tel Aviv’s close allies Canada, Australia, France and the UK – issued a joint statement on 12 August calling on Israel to “provide authorization for all international NGO [non-governmental organization] aid shipments and to unblock essential humanitarian actors from operating.”

“Lethal force must not be used at distribution sites, and civilians, humanitarians and medical workers must be protected,” the ministers added.

Germany and Hungary did not sign the statement, which was eventually endorsed by nearly 20 EU states.

More than 100 organizations issued a statement on 13 August “calling for an end to Israel’s weaponization of aid.”

“Despite claims by Israeli authorities that there is no limit on humanitarian aid entering Gaza,” the groups stated, “most major international NGOs have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies since 2 March.”

Israel’s obstruction of requests from dozens of groups to deliver aid “has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, while Palestinians are being starved.”

The groups noted that Israel’s new conditions include “the mandatory submission of details of private donors, complete Palestinian staff lists and other sensitive information about personnel for so-called ‘security’ vetting to Israeli authorities.”

The groups said that “sharing such data is unlawful (including under relevant data protection laws), unsafe and incompatible with humanitarian principles.”

“The medical data is clear. This is not aid. It is orchestrated killing,” the charity Doctors Without Borders concluded in an analysis of injuries among people seeking aid at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites published in August.

The pattern of anatomical precision of the injuries among aid seekers “strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire,” the charity stated.

The level of violence against children in the proximity of GHF sites “is so extreme … that UNICEF [the UN children’s agency] has issued a public warning urging parents not to send their children to the distribution sites.”

Due to the risk of violent looting and theft of aid, Doctors Without Borders teams have added a new initialization to its patient registry: BBO for Beaten By Others.

“This refers to individuals injured in violent scrambles for food – either in the crush of the crowd or by being beaten and robbed of their supplies immediately after receiving them,” the medical charity stated.

“People are quite literally being forced to fight for food to survive.”

The charity said that its health centers, “which happen to be located near the GHF sites, now place biweekly orders for body bags.”

On 7 August, a group of independent UN human rights experts condemned the world body’s failure to “definitively refer to the situation in Gaza as a genocide” and the European Union’s failure to adopt sanctions against Israel.

“Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people is enabled by the complicity of states that continue to shield Israel from the political and diplomatic consequences of its actions,” the experts said.

Those states instead “suppress the free speech of their own citizens who speak out against these horrendous crimes while continuing to provide Israel with arms, trade and economic assistance.”

The experts noted Israeli proposals to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population to a concentration camp on the border with Egypt in a prelude to their expulsion from the territory.

“Without urgent international action, the words ‘never again’ will refer not to the prevention of genocide, but to the existence of Palestinian life in Gaza,” the experts said.

Later in the month, hundreds of staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights asked Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, to publicly and explicitly describe the situation in Gaza as an unfolding genocide.

Nearly a quarter of Türk’s 2,000 global staff endorsed the appeal, according to Reuters.

The letter “cited the international body’s perceived moral failure for not doing more to stop the 1994 Rwanda genocide that killed more than 1 million people,” the news service added.

The spokesperson for Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said “labeling of an event as a genocide is up to a competent legal authority.”

The UN’s International Court of Justice is considering a genocide complaint lodged against Israel by South Africa in 2023, initiating a legal process that may take several years.

On 9 August, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Satellite Center (UNOSAT) said that a staggering 98.5 percent of Gaza’s cropland is “either damaged, inaccessible, or both.”

The “extremely limited cropland availability” has contributed to “catastrophic food security conditions across Gaza,” the FAO said.

Also contributing to the looming famine in Gaza are “relentless conflict, severe restrictions on the delivery and distribution of humanitarian assistance and widespread destruction of critical infrastructure,” the UN organization added.

FAO, the World Food Program and UNICEF called for “an immediate and sustained ceasefire” as well as a mass influx of aid via Gaza’s crossings, the revival of commercial supply chains to local markets and “investment in the recovery of local food systems.”

Israeli authorities approved a mechanism for the gradual and controlled entry of commercial goods, such as “basic food products, baby food, fruit and vegetables,” into Gaza on 5 August, Reuters reported.

In a briefing to the UN Security Council on 10 August, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said that the Israeli mechanism to resume the entry of some commercial goods into Gaza “has resulted in different types of food returning to markets and a slight decrease in some prices.”

He cautioned that “despite these developments, meaningful change for the population remains elusive, as humanitarian conditions remain largely unchanged.”

The entry of commercial goods and humanitarian supplies into Gaza during August “have led to a decrease in the prices of some key food staples, such as wheat flour, and allowed humanitarian partners to produce a larger number of daily meals at community kitchens,” OCHA reported.

But “limited purchasing power, supply shortages, extremely expensive prices of some high demand items such as potatoes and dry onions, and persistently high liquidity fees … continue to limit the ability of most families to obtain needed supplies of nutritious food,” OCHA added.

The Israeli military killed four Al Jazeera journalists and two other media workers in a targeted strike on a media tent near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on 10 August.

The strike – killing Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qraiqea and camera operators Ibrahim al-Thaher and Mohammed Nofal as well as freelancers Moamen Aliwah and Mohammad al-Khaldi and bystander Saber Jundiya – generated international condemnation of Israel’s assassination of journalists.

UN human rights experts said that the killing of Al Jazeera’s crew as Israel announces its plan to take over Gaza City “is no coincidence, but a deliberate attempt to silence those who would have exposed the [Israeli military’s] atrocities to the world.”

The experts noted that Israel had previously leveled unfounded accusations against al-Sharif and threatened his life and called for an immediate independent investigation.

“These are acts of an arrogant army that believes itself to be impune, no matter the gravity of the crimes it commits,” the experts added.

Al Jazeera called on “the international community and all relevant organizations to take decisive measures to halt this ongoing genocide and end the deliberate targeting of journalists.”

On 13 August, Defense for Children International-Palestine said that Israeli forces arbitrarily detained and tortured Omar Nizar Mahmoud Asfour, 16, for 26 days at a notorious military prison camp after apprehending him near an aid site in Gaza in late June.

The boy was released back to Gaza “after enduring solitary confinement, torture, starvation and deplorable conditions at Sde Teiman,” a desert prison camp, DCIP added.

While he was being interrogated before being transferred to Sde Teiman, the teen was brought to a roof of a hospital [in Gaza] being used as a military base and tied to a rope “where he was left hanging upside down for an extended period,” according to DCIP.

The interrogator released the rope, dropping Omar from a “height of roughly five floors before the rope became taut again, stopping his fall about half a meter (20 inches) above the ground.”

The teen, who was never formally charged with a crime, was repeatedly beaten during his transfer to Sde Teiman, where he was subjected to “brutal beatings, electric shocks, stress positions and other forms of torture.”

Defense for Children International-Palestine said on 21 August that it had documented the disappearance of five boys in Gaza between the ages of 12 and 16 in separate incidents between 24 June and 2 August.

“Each of the boys disappeared while in the Zikim border area, located in north Gaza, which has a crossing where aid trucks cross into Gaza,” DCIP said. “The families fear their children have been abducted and disappeared by Israeli forces.”

Later in the month, independent human rights experts condemned “the enforced disappearance of starving Palestinian civilians seeking food aid at distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”

They said that the enforced disappearances amount to torture.

On 15 August, the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory said that it had “recorded 11 incidents involving attacks on Palestinians guarding convoys in north Gaza and middle Gaza,” resulting in the killing of at least 46 people.

The attacks were part of a pattern indicating “deliberate targeting by the Israeli military of those presumed civilians involved in securing the necessities of life.”

“This follows a similar pattern of attacks on civilian law enforcement,” the UN office added.

Since October 2023, the office has recorded dozens of incidents in which the Israeli military targeted civilian police officers, “contributing to the collapse of law enforcement [and] leading directly to disorder around supply convoys.”

The current attacks on those guarding aid convoys “have contributed to this disorder and worsened the starvation of Palestinians.”

On 16 August, the US announced that it was freezing visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza, including for patients seeking medical treatment in the country, pending review.

Washington had issued more than 3,800 visas to Palestinian Authority travel document holders in 2025.

The State Department announcement came after a social media post by far-right influencer Laura Loomer that provoked outrage among some Republicans, including members of Congress.

Loomer’s post showed a video of children from Gaza arriving to the US for medical treatment and describing their presence in the country as “a national security threat.” She called for the firing of State Department staff who “signed off on these visas.”

On 20 August, the US announced new sanctions against four International Criminal Court judges, including nationals of Canada and France. Washington previously sanctioned four other judges and the ICC chief prosecutor.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that the latest round of sanctions “comes just days after reports that ICC prosecutors were preparing arrest warrants for Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir on charges of apartheid.”

Another Palestinian human rights group, Al-Haq, called on the European Commission – the EU’s executive – to adopt measures to block the sanctions and “prevent impunity.”

The US government announced sanctions on the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al-Haq and Al Mezan in early September, citing the three Palestinian groups’ involvement in the International Criminal Court’s investigations of war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The US State Department also announced in August that it would deny or revoke visas to representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority – including leader Mahmoud Abbas – for the the UN General Assembly meeting in September.

Several US allies are expected to recognize Palestine as a state at the gathering in New York City. On 31 August, Israel said that it was considering formal annexation of land in the West Bank as a rebuke to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, financial constraints were undermining the work a high-level team of UN investigators tapped by the Human Rights Council to investigate human rights abuses in the context of Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.

Navi Pillay, the lead investigator of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told the president of the council in a 6 August letter that “a lack of funds meant that it was unable to hire staff,” Reuters reported.

Last year, the Human Rights Council mandated that the independent commission of inquiry “research additional evidence on arms transfers to Israel in the context of the Gaza war and Israeli settler violence,” according to Reuters.

“A backlog of UN mandatory fees, including from top donor the United States which owes around $1.5 billion, has worsened a long-running UN liquidity crisis,” Reuters added. “In response, the global body plans to cut its budget by 20 percent.”

On 17 August, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israeli forces had been razing al-Zaytoun, a neighborhood southeast of Gaza City, for the past six days, flattening hundreds of homes “with explosive-laden robots and aerial bombardment.”

The operation in al-Zaytoun “mirrors similar assaults in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza, aimed at obliterating entire communities and forcibly displacing all who remain,” the rights group added.

“Drones, specifically quadcopters, are being deployed to encircle residential blocks and coerce civilians into fleeing under armed threat,” according to Euro-Med. Meanwhile, ground forces were advancing under the cover of fire.

More than 90,000 residents were displaced by the operation, the rights group said. The group had gathered data indicating that dozens of residents were killed in Israeli attacks on residential buildings and tents sheltering displaced families.

On 19 August, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council, Palestinian NGO Network and Al-Haq Europe said that the Israeli government’s approval of Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City marked “a major escalation in the genocide.”

The plan includes “the forced displacement of over one million Palestinians from Gaza City – the Gaza Strip’s largest remaining urban center,” the organizations said.

It also involves “the systematic targeting of al-Mawasi,” the undeveloped land where nearly half a million Palestinians have sought refuge in makeshift tents after being displaced from other areas of Gaza.

“This is not a military tactic, it is the calculated erasure of Palestinian life,” the groups said. “It is a plan for the annihilation and annexation of Gaza.”

The groups called for punitive measures, including trade bans, a ban on companies involved in Israeli settlements, sanctions and a ban on energy agreements with Israel, and for the enforcement of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court.

“Gaza must not remain the graveyard for international justice,” the groups said.

On 21 August, Dropsite News reported that Hamas had formally agreed to “a series of major concessions in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.”

The publication, which had obtained a copy of the framework, said that the concessions by Hamas included “dropping its demand that Israel withdraw entirely from the Philadelphi corridor running along the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.”

Hamas also agreed to remove a stipulation that would render the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ineligible to operate in Gaza once the ceasefire went into effect.

Dropsite reported that “additionally, against its previous terms, Hamas consented to proposed Israeli ‘buffer zones’ ” that in some cases stretch some 1,500 meters inside Gaza’s narrow territory.

The framework that Hamas agreed to in July, with the exception of three of the 13 terms laid out, was drafted by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, and Ron Dermer, Israel’s strategic affairs minister. Trump announced it as a “final proposal” for a Gaza ceasefire on 2 July.

“According to the framework, Hamas would agree to release a total of 10 living Israeli captives and 18 deceased over a two-month period,” according to Dropsite.

“Israel, in turn, would free a large number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, military detention and other facilities,” the publication added.

The process of negotiating amendments to the proposal hit a wall after Israel responded to Hamas’ proposed amendments by pulling its negotiating team from Doha in late July.

Trump blamed Hamas for the impasse, emboldening Netanyahu to push for a full-scale invasion of Gaza City and central Gaza.

Two nephews of Hamas leader and negotiator Khalil al-Hayya – Abd al-Salam al-Hayya and Muaz Abd al-Salam al-Hayya – were killed by Israeli shelling while cutting firewood in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City in early August.

In a position that he reiterated during August, Netanyahu maintains that he will only end the nearly two-year war in Gaza once all captives are released, Hamas is fully disarmed and Gaza demilitarized, Israel has established full military control over the territory and a civil administration independent of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is established.

Hamas refuses to disarm, saying that it won’t accept a “surrender” agreement. The group says it will agree to release captives under a framework that would see an end to the war and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of people protested in Israel to demand an end to the war and the release of the captives during August.

Opinion polls show “an overwhelming majority of Israelis favor an immediate end to the war to secure the release of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza,” according to Reuters.

A postwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration, seen and published by The Washington Post, would see the temporary relocation of all residents and its administration by the US for at least 10 years.

The 38-page prospectus – titled “From a Demolished Iranian Proxy to a Prosperous Abrahamic Ally” – envisions Gaza’s transformation “into a gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub.”

The Post reported in late August that “the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”

The scheme’s financial planning “purports to require no US government funding and offer significant profit to investors,” according to the Post.

Boston Consulting Group, which was responsible for the financial planning for the prospectus and was previously involved in setting up the Gaza Humanitarian Fund scheme, said that “two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently fired.”

On 18 August, the Humanitarian Country Team – composed of the heads of UN entities and more than 200 local and international non-governmental organizations working in the West Bank and Gaza – warned that Israel’s threatened offensive in Gaza City would have “a horrific humanitarian impact” on an already exhausted population.

“Forcing hundreds of thousands to move south is a recipe for further disaster and could amount to forcible transfer” – a war crime – the Humanitarian Country Team stated.

“We reiterate our commitment to serve people wherever they are, and we remain present in Gaza City to provide lifesaving support,” the forum added.

The forum noted that since early March, Israel has not allowed any shelter materials into Gaza while “more than 780,000 new displacements have taken place.”

“Existing shelters have deteriorated or been left behind amid repeated displacement orders, making the need for new shelter beyond urgent,” the forum stated.

The Israeli military said that the supply of tents and other shelter materials to Gaza would resume in mid-August.

The Israeli human rights group Gisha noted that the Israeli military would only allow the entry of shelter materials to southern Gaza as it prepares to depopulate areas it declared “combat zones.”

“The decision represents a cynical exploitation of the population’s desperate need for adequate shelter and demonstrates yet again how Israel uses aid as a weapon of war and displacement,” Gisha said.

As of 30 August, “more than 86,000 tents, over one million tarpaulins and sealing-off kits, and some five million non-food items” were awaiting clearance by the Israeli authorities and entry into Gaza, according to OCHA.

On 18 August, Al Mezan, a human rights group based in Gaza, sounded the alarm over “the rapid spread of life-threatening and debilitating diseases” in the territory as a result of “increasingly inhumane and life-threatening conditions.”

The group said that Guillain-Barré syndrome has begun to emerge. Al Mezan described it as “a rare condition in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, causing complete paralysis and, in some cases, death.”

Three people have already died from the disease, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, “and infection rates are rising sharply,” according to Al Mezan.

“To date, 95 cases have been recorded, including 45 children under the age of 15.”

Only one case per year was recorded in Gaza before the genocide, according to Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of the pediatrics and maternity department at Nasser Medical Complex.

Al Mezan said that, according to Al-Farra, “the spread of this disease is directly linked to the contamination of drinking water with sewage, weakened immune systems, vitamin deficiencies and the lack of effective medicines needed to treat the illness.”

Marking World Humanitarian Day, UN humanitarian coordinators in the occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon stated on 19 August that “the world is failing humanitarian workers and the people they serve.”

Over the past year, at least 446 aid workers were killed, wounded, kidnapped or detained in those countries and territories.

“This brings the total number since August 2023 to at least 841 affected workers, including 584 killed, 215 wounded, 38 detained and four kidnapped,” the UN humanitarian coordinators added.

Accompanying attacks on humanitarian workers are “moves to dismantle multilateral norms, undermine UN‑mandated bodies and defund institutions tasked with protection and justice.”

“Even speaking out has become a liability, risking humanitarian access and triggering political retaliation,” the humanitarian coordinators said.

“Protect those who protect humanity,” they added. “End impunity or be complicit.”

On 24 August, the World Health Organization said that one of its staff in Gaza was released after being detained by Israel four weeks earlier when the military attacked its staff residence and main warehouse in Deir al-Balah.

On 19 August, the UN human rights office condemned video footage showing Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, “berating and taunting Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi face-to-face inside an Israeli jail.”

“The minister’s behavior and the publication of the footage constitute an attack on Barghouthi’s dignity,” the UN office added, noting that Ben-Gvir is the minister who oversees the Israel Prison Service.

“International law requires that all those in detention be treated humanely, with dignity, and their human rights respected and protected,” the UN human rights office said.

In the video posted to his X account, Ben-Gvir tells Barghouthi that “you will not win” and that “anyone who messes with the people of Israel … we will wipe him out.”

Barghouthi, 66, has been held in solitary confinement for the past two years. In 2004 he was sentenced to multiple life sentences after being convicted on charges related to attacks on Israelis during the second intifada.

He is widely viewed as a unifying figure between the Fatah party to which he belongs and the faction’s bitter rival Hamas.

“Supporters of Barghouthi say he is a top contender to succeed 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president one day,” according to Reuters.

“A poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research published on May 6 showed he would secure 50 percent of the vote on a likely turnout of 64 percent in a three-way presidential race against Abbas and former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal,” Reuters added.

Also during August, Ben-Gvir claimed to have performed prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound, challenging the fragile status quo at the flashpoint holy site.

On 20 August, the UN human rights office warned that Israel’s plans to conquer Gaza City and force out its inhabitants “will lead to mass killings of civilians and destruction of infrastructure vital to the survival of the population.”

Israel is already repeating in Gaza City – the largest urban area in the territory – the methods and means of warfare leading to mass killings and extensive destruction in both northern and southern Gaza and in previous offensives.

Israel had escalated attacks in eastern and southern Gaza City, particularly in al-Zaytoun, resulting in “a high number of civilian casualties and large-scale destruction of residential buildings and public facilities.”

Hundreds of families have been forced to flee with nowhere safe to go and amid dire humanitarian conditions, the UN office added.

“Others reportedly remain trapped, completely cut off from food, water and medicine supplies,” according to the UN office.

The office said it had recorded more than 50 attacks on residential buildings in Gaza City since 8 August, killing at least 87 people, including 25 children.

“Entire families were killed together in these attacks,” the UN office said.

Fourteen people were killed in attacks on tents and schools being used as shelters for displaced people.

“These figures represent only a portion of the true toll due to underreporting in such dire circumstances,” the UN office said.

“They indicate that the systematic destruction of Gaza City is already underway.”

Hamas demonstrated its continuing capacity to land blows against the Israeli military nearly two years since 7 October 2023 when more than a dozen of its fighters emerged from tunnel shafts and attacked Israeli troops with gunfire and anti-tank missiles in Khan Younis, south of Gaza City on 20 August.

Three soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military, which said that Hamas had sought to capture troops.

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that it stormed the soldiers’ encampment and engaged with the troops at “point-blank range.”

The group also said that one of its fighters blew himself up among the troops and claimed that soldiers were killed in the attack.

On 21 August, the UN human rights office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said that the Israeli government’s final approval of the so-called E-1 settlement plan in occupied East Jerusalem “represents another grave and unlawful step to consolidate annexation of the occupied West Bank.”

International law prohibits the acquisition of territory by force and bans an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to occupied territory.

Under the headline “Burying the idea of a Palestinian state,” Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s extreme right finance minister who is a settler himself, announced that work would commence on the project.

“Whoever in the world is trying to recognize a Palestinian state today will receive our answer on the ground,” Smotrich said in the 14 August statement.

“Not with documents nor with decisions or statements, but with facts. Facts of houses, facts of neighborhoods,” he added.

Meanwhile, settlers and Israeli forces “continue to attack Palestinians, 10 of whom were killed in the context of settler attacks since the beginning of June,” the UN office stated.

They include Thameen Dawabsheh, who was shot and killed by a settler reportedly on leave from the Israeli army “during a confrontation between unarmed Palestinians and armed settlers preparing for the construction of an illegal outpost in Duma, Nablus” on 13 August.

Israeli forces raided Duma and arrested five Palestinians but no Israeli settlers had been arrested for Dawabsheh’s killing, the UN office noted.

Hamdan Mousa Abu Alia, 18, was shot in the back and killed by Israeli forces on 16 August “following a settler attack which led to confrontations with Palestinians,” the UN human rights office added.

The so-called E-1 area is “a nerve center connecting the three major Palestinian cities of East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as the north and south of the West Bank,” the office said.

“By dramatically restricting Palestinians’ ability to move within the occupied West Bank, it will have catastrophic effects on their enjoyment of fundamental rights to access health, education, employment, and maintain family and society connections.”

Meanwhile, herding and farming communities living in the area “are at imminent risk of being forcibly displaced.”

On 20 August, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Global Shelter Cluster – an inter-agency coordination mechanism convened by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies – warned against the instrumentalization of aid during Israel’s offensive in Gaza City.

With more people being pressured to move amid Israel’s widening operations, the “shelter situation is catastrophic and there are already 1.4 million people in need of basic emergency shelter,” the UN office and the shelter cluster said.

“Cluster partners are deeply concerned about the potential instrumentalization of shelter assistance in the context of forcible transfer,” they added.

“The provision of shelter items must never be conditioned on, or used to facilitate, the transfer of populations,” the UN office and shelter cluster said. “Doing so risks legitimizing or contributing to forcible transfer, a grave breach of international humanitarian law.”

They said that aid “must be provided solely based on humanitarian needs, with equitable access across all affected areas,” including in north Gaza and Gaza City.

Famine was confirmed for the first time in Gaza, according to an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the leading global food insecurity consortium, released on 22 August.

More than half a million people “are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death,” the report states.

Those conditions are most prevalent in the Gaza City area and were projected to expand to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and then to Khan Younis in the south. Conditions are likely as severe or worse in north Gaza than in the environs of Gaza City but the IPC was unable to undertake a complete assessment.

The IPC said that it was the fifth time that its famine review committee had been called to analyze the situation in Gaza.

“Never before has the [famine review committee] had to return so many times to the same crisis,” the IPC stated, noting that it was “a stark reflection of how suffering has not only persisted but intensified and spread.”

The IPC warned that without an immediate and sustained ceasefire and an influx of food aid and the restoration of water, sanitation and health services, “avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.”

Several UN agencies said on 22 August that the IPC declaration was the “first time a famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region.” The agencies added that a slight increase in the amount of food and aid supplies entering Gaza since July remained “vastly insufficient, inconsistent and inaccessible compared to the need.”

The agencies – which include the Food and Agricultural Organization, UNICEF, UNRWA, the World Food Program and World Health Organization – called for an immediate and sustained ceasefire and “unimpeded access for a mass influx of assistance to reach people across Gaza.”

“The restoration of commercial flows at scale, market systems, essential services, and local food production is also vital if the worst outcomes of the famine are to be avoided,” the agencies added.

The Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan noted that the declaration of famine “comes just over a month after the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, announced a so-called ‘humanitarian agreement’ with Israel to significantly increase aid to starving Palestinians.”

“It is now apparent that said agreement was meaningless and destined to fail,” Al Mezan said.

“It is time for meaningful sanctions and genuine accountability,” the group added.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the declaration of famine requires the UN General Assembly to invoke “its powers under the Uniting for Peace resolution to establish a peacekeeping force that would halt the ongoing crimes” in Gaza.

“Those responsible for the catastrophe, affecting more than two million people in Gaza, must be held accountable,” Euro-Med added.

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said on 22 August that the declaration of famine in Gaza “is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” which has “unlawfully restricted the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance and other goods necessary for the survival of the civilian population.”

“It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing,” Türk added.

Tom Fletcher, a senior UN official, said during a press briefing that “it is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone owns this. The Gaza famine is the world’s famine.”

“It is a famine that asks ‘but what did you do?’ A famine that will and must haunt us all,” he added, urging people to read the report cover to cover and “be moved to action.”

On 27 August, the United Nations Security Council issued a joint statement, with the exception of the US, saying that the famine in Gaza was a “manmade crisis” and called for an immediate ceasefire and surge in aid without restrictions.

Dorothy Shea, the acting US ambassador to the UN, cast doubt on the credibility of the IPC report and its confirmation of famine in Gaza.

The UN Population Fund, reiterating the findings of the IPC report, said in August that “more than 40 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are severely malnourished.”

Al Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group, stated earlier in the month that “Israeli forces have rendered breastfeeding, a fundamental right and a natural practice, nearly impossible for children in Gaza as they struggle for survival.”

“In Gaza today, an estimated 50,000 lactating women and 40,000 infants under the age of one face life-threatening conditions,” Al Mezan added.

One in five babies is born prematurely or underweight and one in seven newborns is “in need of emergency neonatal care because of severe complications,” the UNFPA said.

“The children who survive will be marked by lasting scars: stunting, developmental delays, weakened immunity and increased risk of chronic disease in adulthood,” the UNFPA added.

“Famine today will shape the health prospects of Palestinians for generations.”

Inger Ashing, the CEO of Save the Children International, told the UN Security Council on 27 August: “Until you choose to act, this is the fate you are guaranteeing a generation of children in Gaza.”

“Children have reached their breaking point. Where is yours?” Ashing asked.

On 24 August, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israel had “begun executing its unlawful plan to destroy and occupy Gaza City.”

The group said that the Israeli military was bombing and demolishing buildings “across the south, east and north, advancing from three axes towards the city’s center in a campaign of comprehensive destruction and systematic erasure.”

More than one million people “are now trapped in less than 30 percent of Gaza City” and facing forcible displacement to the south, Euro-Med added.

Israeli forces detonated explosive-laden robots in multiple areas in the vicinity of Gaza City, “causing widespread destruction.”

“In addition to deploying explosive-laden robots, Israeli forces have intensified the use of quadcopter drones loaded with crates of explosives,” Euro-Med said.

“These drones drop their payloads inside buildings or onto rooftops, causing devastation no less severe than that inflicted by the robots or airstrikes.”

On 25 August, five journalists were killed in two Israeli airstrikes on Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Reuters contractor Hussam Al-Masri was killed in the first strike and Al Jazeera camera operator Mohammed Salama, freelance photojournalists Mariam Abu Daqqa and Ahmed Abu Aziz, and freelance video journalist Moaz Abu Taha were killed while covering the aftermath of the first strike.

Twenty-two civilians were killed in the attack, including three hospital staff, a doctor, a civil defense worker and a child, and more than 50 others were injured, according to the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The two groups filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court exposing the chain of command behind the attack, which it said was a war crime and constitutes an act of genocide.

Israeli media, citing a security source, initially reported that the building was targeted due to “the presence of a camera on the hospital roof” that it said was used by Hamas, according to Israel Hayom. Israel provided no evidence for the claim.

The Israeli military later claimed to have targeted six members of a Palestinian armed group and denied targeting the five journalists who were killed. Hamas denied that any of the people killed in the attack were fighters.

Reuters said that its “live video feed from the hospital, which was operated by al-Masri, suddenly shut down at the moment of the initial strike.”

The news service, citing one of al-Masri’s colleagues, said that the slain journalist “had chosen to look after the live feed at Nasser hospital in part because he believed it was the safest place he could operate from.”

The double-tap strike “reflects a repeated pattern by the [Israeli military] to maximize casualties and obstruct rescue operations,” the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.

Al Mezan said that “field reports and eyewitness accounts confirm that Israeli surveillance drones were actively monitoring” the hospital.

“This confirms that Israeli forces deliberately targeted the hospital despite there being clearly identifiable doctors, civil defense members and journalists with visible press markings,” Al Mezan added.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said that 245 journalists and media workers were killed and at least 520 injured and 39 arrested, 22 of whom remain in detention, between 7 October 2023 and 26 August.

According to Al Mezan’s documentation, 299 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

On 28 August, Israel attacked the Yemeni capital Sanaa, killing senior officials including Ahmad al-Rahwi, prime minister of the government run by Ansar Allah.

Six people were killed and 84 wounded in an Israeli attack on Yemen a few days earlier, according to the Yemeni authorities.

The deadly Israeli strike that killed al-Rahwi came after Ansar Allah claimed to have fired a ballistic missile toward Israel.

“An Israeli Air Force official said … the missile most likely carried several submunitions ‘intended to be detonated upon impact,’” Reuters reported. The Israeli official said “this is the first time that this kind of missile has been launched from Yemen.”

Ansar Allah has prevented commercial ships from reaching Israeli ports via the Red Sea in an effort to stop the genocide in Gaza and fighters have launched missiles and drones from the country that have hit targets in Israel.

“Our stance remains as it is and will remain until the aggression ends and the siege is lifted, no matter how great the challenges,” Mahdi al-Mashat, the head of Ansar Allah’s Supreme Political Council, said after the Sanaa attack of 28 August.

Ansar Allah forces raided the World Food Program offices in Sanaa on 31 August and detained at least 11 personnel working for the UN and seized property belonging to the world body.

On 30 August, the same day that Ansar Allah confirmed that al-Rahwi was killed, Hamas named Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded his brother Yahya as leader of the resistance organization in Gaza, among its slain leaders.

Israel claimed to have killed Mohammed Sinwar in a strike in Khan Younis in May. Yahya Sinwar was killed in battle in Rafah in October 2024.

On 31 August, Israel’s defense minister claimed that Abu Obeida, the pseudonymous spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing, had been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza the previous day.

The World Health Organization said on 29 August that it had run out of medical supplies in Gaza needed to treat a surge in cases of Guillain- Barré syndrome, which had claimed 10 lives since June, including four children under the age of 15.

“Acute respiratory infections and acute watery diarrhea remain the most commonly reported illnesses in the Gaza Strip,” OCHA reported towards the end of August.

Meanwhile, diabetes patients “are increasingly unable to access their treatment due to severe medication shortages, leading to serious consequences for their health,” OCHA said in August.

“An estimated 71,000 diabetes patients, including about 2,500 patients with type 1 diabetes, are dependent on insulin, which has only one month of stock remaining,” OCHA stated.

“Securing both insulin and adequate food remains a daily challenge,” OCHA added. “Additionally, devices to monitor blood glucose levels (glucometers and testing strips) are unavailable.”

Tags

• photostory
• month in pictures
• photojournalism
• photography

• Facebook
• Twitter

• Donate Now